


The Harder We Fall

by Demmora



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: High Chaos, High Chaos Corvo Attano, High Chaos Week 2016, the angst, tw: mentions of blood and violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:33:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7264429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demmora/pseuds/Demmora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For High Chaos Week- renegadecupcake on tumblr asks: You want a high chaos prompt, you got one. Callista helping to clean up all the blood Corvo trails behind him at the pub, trying to hide it from Emily but realizing that the little princess KNOWS and it's changing her. :)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Harder We Fall

She lies awake some nights, listening for the sound of the old boat on the water. Some nights she hears sirens and explosions in the distance, wondering if they herald failure of success. But Corvo always comes home, so she supposes that’s all that matters.

Emily sleeps through most of it, still overwrought and tired from her ordeal, but on some nights she hears her, lying awake, breath careful and still, and knows she must be thinking the same. Tonight is one of those nights. And Corvo lies not twenty yards away…

_There had been so much blood…_

The night before had apparently been eventful, evident from the smoke on the horizon and the sound of bedlam floating over the open water, carried to them here in their little sanctuary. Callista spies them from the tower, sees the stiff line of Samuel sitting upright, and the slouched figure leaning over the side. With Emily still abed, Callista darts from the tower, running down the steps two at a time, fearing the worst. Cecelia is with her as the door to the pub opens and Samuel shuffles in, Corvo leaning heavily on his shoulders.

_There had been so much blood,_ it stained his cuffs black, his boots caked with mud and worse, trailing behind him as Samuel deposited him into the booth. Callista had sent Cecelia running then, to find Admiral Havelock and also for a mop. The look Samuel gave her as he walked past was a bleak one, his face stern enough to be carved from stone. She’s never seen him look so old.

For his part, Corvo continued to lean back in the booth, chest heaving with the effort of breathing, head tipped back, eyes closed against the world. The mask lay forgotten on the table, and Callista noted that that too was slick with blood. It looked like fingerprints.

“Weepers,” he rasped out at last, his voice rumbling and thick in his chest as he pried a bloodshot eye open to look at her. “There was a… _colony_ of them by the river.”

_Oh good, not real people then…_

The thought makes her sick, makes her hate herself almost as much as she hates the wry smile forming on his grimy face, as though he knows what she’s thinking. They were people once, people with names and jobs and families…but the plague has stripped them of everything, even their humanity…

“You should get cleaned up.” she informs him, slipping into what he has deemed her “governess voice” the one she uses when Emily refuses to sit still or mind her manners. It makes him smile all the more, white teeth flashing as he gives a harsh little laugh, head tipping forwards and causing hair to spill messily over his face. She’s not sure what he finds so funny, but the look he gives her from underneath the slick strands of hair borders on predatory. It melts away after a moment, shuttering away behind a terrible exhaustion that yawns out of him like a gaping maw.

“Help me?”

It’s such a simple plea, and it fills her with inexplicable dread. But she nods all the same, reaching out to take his arm and trying not to cringe when the stench of gun powder and decay envelops her. He’s leaning heavily on her, slipping and sliding up the stairs, veering them both into the wall and would have almost toppled them backwards if Martin hadn’t appeared and grabbed them both.

“By the Outsider,” the other man breathes, taking Corvo’s weight from Callista and shouldering him down the hallway. They’re halfway through the door when the stairwell above them creaks and Callista closes her eyes in dread.

“C-Corvo?“

Both men freeze as Corvo works to unwind himself, turning stiffly. Emily is frozen on the staircase, a tableau of horror. Corvo shuffles toward her, inching down to eye level and turning her head up. His fingerprint leaves a dark red smudge on her chin.

“It’s not mine,” he says, as though somehow that should be reassurance enough, as though his footprints don’t track blood in his wake. “It’s not mine, Em’.”

She nods slowly, the bright threat of tears in her eyes banking to something calmer. “Did you bring me anything?”

And that too is a worrying ritual that has developed between the two. Where once he would have dropped to his knees in greeting, now he brings her trinkets, shiny baubles and pieces of frippery, stolen from the gods know where, dangling them over her head like shiny distractions, as though their cold sparkle can make up for the loss of light in his eyes…

He laughs, as though she is an indulged child not starved for affection, and he not about to pull the precious jewels of a dead lady out from his pocket coat. It’s pearls this time, and Emily accepts them gleefully, rolling them over her fingers like prayer beads. She doesn’t even say thank you. She knows she doesn’t have to. They are an offering, not a gift.

“Lets go upstairs, Emily.” Callista intervenes at last, stepping forward and taking Emily by the hand. “Corvo needs to get cleaned up.”

She’s not sure what is worse, that Emily looks relieved, or that she’s glad Emily doesn’t want to stay. Both are equally awful. Corvo watches them leave, and again Callista feels as though her every move is tracked, measured, weighed. She can only hope she is not found to be wanting…

The first thing she does in the tower is wipe the fingerprint from Emily’s face. The second is to take the pearls from her, promising to return them once they are clean. Emily hands them over with little protest, as she does so many things. The items are priceless to her, in all senses of the word. It’s only his attention she wants…

_There had been so much blood.  
_

Callista stares at the ceiling, listening to Emily breathe and waiting for the inevitable sound of tears that must surely come. But there is only silence.


End file.
